


Is There Any Just Cause for Feeling Like This? (On Any Surface, I'm a Name on a List)

by Alyeska_Writes



Category: My Babysitter's A Vampire
Genre: Benny Weir Needs a Hug, Blood and Gore, Character Death, F/F, Grief/Mourning, Hurt No Comfort, I was in my feelings, Kinda, M/M, Minor Erica Jones/Sarah Fox, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Rated for language and violence, so obviously i had to kill off a character, this is really just my excuse to write angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-06
Updated: 2020-08-06
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:06:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25742554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alyeska_Writes/pseuds/Alyeska_Writes
Summary: “Don’t go,” Benny pleads, although he knows it’s futile. And then, without thinking, “I love you.” Ethan stills, at that, and despite Benny’s momentary panic, he knows his friend (the love of his fucking life, actually) isn’t gone.Yet.
Relationships: Ethan Morgan/Benny Weir, Sarah Fox/Erica Jones
Comments: 16
Kudos: 39





	Is There Any Just Cause for Feeling Like This? (On Any Surface, I'm a Name on a List)

**Author's Note:**

> y'know how in every fandom, there's that one person who always has depressing headcanons and kills off all your favorite characters in fics, and you're like, 'this is why we can't have nice things'? it's me. i'm why we can't have nice things. 
> 
> yes, the title is from (I Just) Died in Your Arms. i was in my feelings, so this happened. sorry?
> 
> don't hate me too much ^^;;

Sometimes, Benny wishes they could just be _normal._

Of course, he loves having magic. Ethan’s visions are kind of really friggin’ awesome and helpful. Sarah and Erica are _total_ badasses, and Rory…well. Rory has his moments, too. They’re all super cool in their own, supernatural way, but Benny sometimes wonders what it would be like if they weren’t. Erica would still be a geeky _Dusker_ and they’d love her for it. Rory would still be…strange, but again, they’d love him for it. Benny didn’t really…know Sarah before she was bitten, so he has no frame of reference, but something tells him she was a lot like how Erica used to be.

And he and Ethan? Well, they could go back to the way they were. And while they both often complain about having a dorky reputation, it’s not like they try to _fix_ that, which they very well could. They could quit the lazer chess club and they could stop talking about the fandoms they belong to in public, and Benny has magic, so he could instantly make them a lot cooler than they are, but he doesn’t. Neither of them seem to want that. And sometimes, Benny wishes they could do what they used to; stay in Ethan’s room, eating junk food and playing video games until the sun comes up. Instead, they battle a new horror every week and have to carry on like nothing ever happened.

On one hand, it’s kinda cool. Sometimes Benny feels like he’s in something like _Stranger Things,_ hunting monsters and saving the town and, sometimes the world, without anybody ever knowing it was him and his friends. Sometimes, it feels like they’re part of a secret society that nobody else can know about, and it’s theirs and theirs only.

But other times…other times, it feels like he’s in a world that Stephen King created. Other times, when he’s watching over Ethan to make sure he’s still breathing after a particularly nasty bite, bump, scratch or gash, or when he’s licking his own wounds and waiting for the pain to subside, or when they’ve all narrowly escaped death and don’t have any time to recuperate because they have school in the next three hours, it’s…

Yeah. It’s complicated.

It’s complicated right now.

Tracking down one Spook or another is a normal Tuesday for them. But it feels different, this time. He doesn’t know why, or how, but there’s a feeling of dread that’s settled itself in Benny's gut and won’t leave. And for the first time, he’s wondering why Ethan has to play Leader all the time, why he has to actively put himself in danger with a ‘ _well someone has to, and if you don’t, I will’_ attitude. He’s wondering why Ethan is such a self-sacrificing _idiot_ all the time. For someone so smart he’s really fucking dumb sometimes, isn’t he? And it’s not like they haven’t fought this kind of thing before. Witches, vampires, werewolves, alligators on magical steroids, evil vice principals…

(Yeah, Benny will never know how they escaped that one with their lives.)

They know what they’re doing.

So why does Benny feel like he’s about to vomit?

“Dude, you okay?”

He jumps when Ethan’s voice, barely even a whisper, cuts through the silence of the tunnels. Ethan, all concerned puppy-dog eyes and gentle touches…

Why has that never stopped taking Benny’s breath away?

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m good. Just…nervous is all, I guess. I’ve got a bad feeling about this one,” he answers. Ethan doesn’t say anything at first. He has this far away look in his eye, not quite unlike when he has a vision. “Yeah, not really helping there, buddy.”

“No, sorry, I get what you mean, but it’ll be okay,” Ethan assures. Benny’s not sure if that’s his normal awkward smile, or…

“Can’t we just let our fanged friends handle this one and go wait outside or something?” and no, he did not whine, because he’s _serious._ Something bad is going to happen.

“We heard that,” someone, it sounds like Erica, grumbles. “What are you, chicken?”

Normally Benny would love to retort, but normally, Benny would be able to shake off his dread and get down to business. All he has the wherewithal to do is send a glare back to Erica with more heat than he meant to. Is it just him or does she look taken aback?

“We’re not going to leave our friends alone,” Ethan tells him, and it’s strange, because he lacks his usual heat and decisiveness. He sounds…soft, gentle, like he’s trying to be reassuring, but that in itself is not reassuring _at all._ “Come on.”

Benny can’t move. He knows they need to keep going, he knows he needs to follow his friend into sure death like he always does, but he can’t force his feet to move. And then…Ethan does something strange. They’re not touchy, not really. A shoulder clap here or a high five there, and the occasional hug when someone _really_ needs it, but they’re not the most physically affectionate people in the world.

(Benny couldn’t handle it if he had the option of holding Ethan against his chest, and knew nothing could ever come of it. He couldn’t.)

So that’s why it’s a surprise when Ethan grabs his hand and holds it tight, grounding Benny or grounding himself, he’s not sure. Maybe it’s a bit of both, but Benny could almost laugh, because when _hasn’t_ Ethan been his anchor? When _hasn’t_ he been the one bringing Benny back down to Earth and pulling him out of a place he had no desire to be? Funny how things come full circle.

They venture further into the tunnels. Ethan does not let go of his hand.

Deeper into the tunnels they go, and Benny still feels like he’s about to throw up. The feeling he had at the start of all this is only getting stronger, more nauseating than ever. 

“I didn’t even know we _had_ mines…” Sarah comments. Her voice echoes in the otherwise empty tunnel. It’s eerie.

“I didn’t either,” Ethan comments. “I don’t think anybody really did.”

“They’re pretty old,” Benny supplies, swallowing back his apprehension. “Not even Grandma knew about them.”

“Something bad happened here,” Ethan continues. “Something _really_ bad. Bad enough that they tried to seal this place up and wipe it from local history.”

“That’s…comforting,” Benny grumbles. Rory, who had been uncharacteristically quiet as soon as they entered the mines, offers a nervous,

“Something like a cave monster that ate all the miners?”

Was that meant to be a joke?

“Something like that,” Ethan confirms. “I don’t even know what it is. I saw it in a vision, but…I couldn’t really place just one defining feature, you know? It was like some kind of hybrid.”

“So we’re coming down here, half-cocked, with no idea what we’re up against? Great,” Erica grumbles.

“Hey, we’re three vampires, a wizard, and a seer. Can’t be too hard, right?” and really, Benny wishes Ethan didn’t have to sound so nervous.

“Piece of cake,” Benny responds, and curses his voice for trembling so.

“You guys _suck_ ,” Erica hisses.

“Oh, we are well aware,” Benny tells her. “But thanks for the reminder.”

If he squeezes Ethan’s hand a little harder, and if Ethan squeezes back, then that’s nobody’s business but their own. They’re huddled together, the five of them, and normally Benny would make a _Scooby Doo_ reference or at least tell them all to relax, but again, these are far from normal circumstances. Erica and Sarah’s hands are linked together, Benny can see it out of the corner of his eye in the not-bright-enough light of their flashlights and headlamps (“You look so cute with that headlamp, E!” “Shut up, Benny.”) but he doesn’t say anything. He almost feels bad for Rory, that he has nobody to hang on to, but Rory looks…better off than the rest of them, and Benny isn’t sure if that’s false bravado, stupidity, or a bit of both.

A low growl reverberates off the walls, and the group stops in their tracks. Benny can feel himself trembling.

“So, we’re getting close,” he tries. The crack in his voice gives him away.

“Great,” Sarah mumbles.

“Let’s go kick some prehistoric ass?” Rory tries. Definitely false bravado, then.

“Prehistoric, supernatural, or otherworldly. Either way, this thing is going down,” but where Ethan would normally sound pumped, he sounds hesitant. He takes a deep breath, and pushes on. As they move further into the tunnel, a putrid stench reaches their senses, and while it’s not out of the ordinary for something to smell absolutely horrible (like the smell of brimstone whenever Stern cast one of his spells), all five of them find themselves gagging on it. It leaves an acrid taste in Benny’s mouth that he knows no amount of mouthwash will get rid of.

And suddenly, Benny notices that their flashlights aren’t the only things illuminating the tunnel. There’s an opening up ahead. The light he sees is far from comforting. It’s…ominous. Pulsating. Almost like…a heartbeat? Or something. He’ll figure it out later. He can feel it, the group taking a collective deep breath, bolstering themselves before continuing on. Funny how they’re in sync like that. Benny’s dread only worsens, the closer they get to the belly of the beast.

And at first…he doesn’t see anything. Just rocks and—oh, yeah. Those are bones. Part of him wonders how old they are. Part of him wonders how old this fresh hell they’re dealing with is. He hears a whimper from one of them, probably himself if he’s being honest, and he hears a scrape, and then—

And then all hell breaks loose.

He’s not sure who screamed, but he is sure that he saw the—whatever that thing is. He has no description for it, aside from maybe nine of his ten worst nightmares rolled into one. The stench is only the beginning. The thing is decked out with claws, fangs, the whole nine. It looks like some sort of experiment, and really, how many body-of-dog-head-of-snake freaks of nature have to exist? There’s something going on with its tail, and the trail of spikes going down its back, that Benny doesn’t want to dwell on.

He should’ve dwelled on it. He really should’ve. But then, he’s too busy avoiding decapitation by a vicious swipe of claws. Talons? Whatever they are, they’re sharp and _deadly._ Erica is screaming something to Sarah, and Rory looks like he’s trying to form some sort of plan of attack, and Benny can relate. He can’t find Ethan, though, and that’s the worst of all. He always knows where Ethan is, at all times, but he’s lost him in the shadows.

“Guys!” he calls. Screams, rather, over the howls of the Creature and the horrified shrieks of his friends. “Guys, regroup!”

“Benny, look out!” Sarah cries, and Benny turns around to see something, he can’t tell what it is in the brief flashes and dull pulses of contrasting lights, coming for him, and he doesn’t think. He can only act. He raises a hand and, without even saying anything, without even _thinking_ about it, he releases a burst of his power. Does he know what it’s going to do? No. Is the supernatural howl of pain a good sign? Yes. No? Maybe? He’ll take the win, regardless.

“Nice!” Ethan commends, suddenly right next to him. Benny flinches despite himself, and receives a steadying hand on his shoulder by way of apology. “Was that instinctual?”

“Uh…yeah.”

“Awesome. Good job, buddy,” Ethan commends. And this time, it only takes Benny, like, a couple of seconds instead of an entire thirty of them to shake himself out of the rush he always feels when Ethan compliments him. Way to go, Benny.

“It’s too bad the Lucifractor was destroyed,” Benny grumbles. “It would’ve destroyed this thing in seconds.”

“Yeah, and all our friends,” Ethan reminds him. “And…something tells me the Lucifractor is what woke this thing up. I hardly think it was a coincidence that right after the explosion, this guy started…yeah.”

Eating people. Terrorizing the town. Trying to kill all of them, right now. The list goes on and on.

“Besides…” Ethan continues. “With your magic, and our knowledge of all things monster-vanquishing, who needs that piece of junk?”

“Right…”

The others are doing a very good job at keeping it distracted. All they need to do is, like, not die before they can form a better plan than they already had.

“Any ideas, E…?”

“Well…that light…it’s coming from that thing,”

“That explains why it’s so…”

“Yeah…anyway, that’s not what I mean. Anything that has a beating heart definitely needs it to live.”

“So, what, we rip its heart out? How, by distracting it so our vampire friends can do our dirty work?”

“Got any better ideas?”

“…nope! Let’s do this!”

Ethan grins at him, one of his proper grins. Wide, goofy, completely insane. And now is not really the time for Benny to remember just how in love he is with his best friend, but y’know, here he is. One more shoulder clasp to bolster each other, and Benny tears himself away. They’ve a job to do. He almost forgets that he knows, deep in his heart, that something bad is going to happen. It’s fine. This is fine. Everything’s _fine._

“Hey, ugly!” he calls. The Monster looks toward him. Gods, it really _is_ ugly. “What’s a Stephen King reject like you doing down here!?”

Benny isn’t…entirely sure that it can understand him, but if it can’t, Benny’s mocking tone must’ve _really_ pissed it off. 

“Guys, go for the heart!” Ethan calls. Benny hopes they can catch it while it’s moving. Mostly because he’s running for his life and he _really_ doesn’t want it to catch up. A horrible screeching hiss almost shatters his eardrums as it echoes in the chamber.

“Listen, I know it’s hard to be hideous, but you don’t have to take it out on us!” Benny continues. Oh, gods, it’s gaining. Oh, sweet Triple Goddess he doesn’t want to die.

It’s funny, because he can recognize the energy of the arcane when he feels it. This beast is no exception. It’s not in any of Grandma’s books, but it feels almost…familiar somehow. Familiar as in, it feels like an energy he battled before. Grandma always told him that if he fought on the side of the Goddess, he’d always win, because no amount of corrupt and selfish magic is a worthy adversary.

Oh…

_Oh!_

Maybe that’s why Benny’s magic had harmed it, earlier. Benny doesn’t know who conjured this…beast, but there’s an energy around it that’s…pure evil. And yeah, they’ve dealt with evil before, but something tells Benny that no ordinary spellcaster was the cause of this. Gritting his teeth, he turns around and draws as much of his power as he can. The Earth is Good, Grandma says, and, well…

Concentrate, Benny, _concentrate!_

He closes his eyes. He prays that the Goddess doesn’t abandon him now. Silently, he begs that she grant him the power to protect his friends, and he feels a new pulse. One different from the energy that the creature emits. One innately Good, and he knows his prayers were answered. In the milliseconds before he releases all that he’s holding, he can see the monster drawing closer, he can see Ethan running toward him, and the moment he pushes it all toward their foe, the cave is awash in a green light. Or…maybe that’s just him.

And it works. Goddess, it works! It’s not a fatal blow, by any means, but it certainly weakens the eldritch _horror_ enough for his friends to finish the job. Ethan reaches him in seconds, eyes as wide as his grin. He’s there to offer a steadying hand, but somehow, although bursts of magic like that usually _are_ draining, Benny feels just fine. Even more energized than when he walked in, even. He feels _great_ , and the behemoth is limping away, and their friends are closing in, and—

Benny grimaces at the sound (and the stench) as three pairs of hands dig into slimy flesh. Erica is complaining, but she’ll be fine, and they’ll all be fine, and—

But the monster has one more defense.

Don’t they always?

Those spikes, the ones at the end of Its tail and along Its back, the ones that Benny should’ve paid attention to? He barely registers it as they come flying towards him, and really, should he be so surprised? 

Everything happens so…quickly. One minute, the Supernatural Spikes of Doom are speeding towards Benny, and his body has yet to catch up with his brain, and the next, he’s on the ground. Unharmed, aside from a rather nasty bump on the head, but still incredibly confused, and hyper aware that he should probably be dead. But he’s…not.

It’s not until Ethan falls to his knees that he understands.

And _then_ he kicks into overdrive.

Immediately, Benny is sitting up, and he’s putting a hand on Ethan’s shoulder, and he’s asking if he’s okay, because Ethan, that was so stupid, we should’ve Both hit the deck, we would’ve been fine, and—

And then he Sees it.

Ethan had pushed him out of the way.

And earned a spike through his chest for his efforts.

“Benny…?” 

He sounds so soft, so scared. But he’s going to be alright, right? He’s going to be _fine._ Benny knows some healing magic, this…this is no big deal, is it? The others will finish the job and Benny will heal his best friend, and they’ll all walk out of here like they always do. 

“Hey, E…” Benny murmurs, hand on his shoulder. “I’m gonna see what I can do for you, okay? You’re gonna be alright. Just…”

Ethan doesn’t say much. In fact, he says nothing. His eyes are wide, shocked, like he still doesn’t quite have a grip on what just happened. Slowly, he glances down at his own chest; something of a whimper escapes his throat and his hands come to rest on the spike.

“Benny…” he sounds pleading.

The blood spilling from his mouth really can’t be a good sign, can it?

“I know, I know. I’m gonna make this go away,”

“You…Ben, you can’t…”

“The fuck I can’t. Now hold on, this…it’s going to hurt, but hold on, okay?”

“Benny, wait—!”

Benny read somewhere once that if someone stabs you, but leaves the knife, to leave it there. It stems the blood flow, or something. But this isn’t a knife, and, well, Benny has trouble remembering things he’s read at the best of times, and to say these are the worst of times would be an understatement.

The noise that Ethan makes is not unlike a wounded animal, when Benny pulls the spike out of his chest and tosses it to the side. Loud, desperate, and in an incredible amount of pain. But it’s alright, because it’s gonna go away in a second, it is! Ethan grips his arm with waning strength.

Desperately, Benny tries to remember the spell. His hands are shaking where he puts them on Ethan’s wound, and his voice is also tremulous as he mutters the words. Again, and again, and again. It should be working. It’s not like Benny has a finite amount of magic. And he’s certain he’s saying the words right, so it _has_ to work. _Why isn’t it working?_

“Benny…” Ethan coughs, and Benny hates how weak he sounds. “Stop.”

“No!” Benny cries, with more vehemence than he meant. “No, it’s gonna work! You’re gonna be fine, Ethan!”

“Benny! Stop!”

Benny stops.

“Please, just…” Ethan murmurs, eyes pleading. “Hold me?”

The thing is, for as long as Benny can remember, he’s both subconsciously and consciously longed for Ethan to ask that of him. This isn’t exactly what he pictured. But who is he to deny Ethan Morgan? So he gathers his friend in his arms, and holds him against his chest.

“This okay?”

“Yeah…this is good…”

Carding his cleaner hand through Ethan’s hair, Benny pleads,

“Stay with me, E.”

And he knows it’s an impossible request. Ethan smiles at him. Or rather, attempts to. It’s weak and watery, and his teeth are stained with his own blood. Hysterically, at the back of his mind, Benny worries about Ethan bleeding in a room full of vampires. Logically, he knows it’s not an issue.

“It’s okay, man…” Ethan whispers. “It doesn’t even hurt…”’

Benny doesn’t need a doctor to tell him that, that’s not a good sign, either.

“Don’t go,” he whimpers, although he knows it’s futile. And then, without thinking, “I love you.” Ethan stills, at that, and despite Benny’s momentary panic, he knows his friend (the love of his fucking life, actually) isn’t gone.

Yet.

“You know, I…” Ethan murmurs. “I wanted to hear you say that for…for a really long time…” a pale, shaking hand finds its way to Benny’s cheek. It’s not comforting. “I don’t know why I never…”

“Shh,” Benny soothes. “It’s okay.”

It’s not okay.

“This is good…” Ethan repeats. “This is perfect, actually, I mean…you’re holding me…and…as far as dying goes, I could think of…of worse ways to go…”

“Ethan, I—,”

“No, it’s fine…” Ethan’s voice is intermixed with wheezes, growing softer and softer by the second. Neither of them have noticed that the beast now lies dead, its heart crushed beneath Erica’s boot. “I just want you to know…I _need_ you to know that I love…”

Benny waits for the end of his sentence.

It never comes.

Instead, Ethan’s hand slips from his cheek. His eyes, sightless and glassy, are trained on nothing. It doesn’t take a vampire to know that his heart has stopped beating. But Benny doesn’t comprehend as much. Because Ethan can’t be dead, he just _can’t_ be! Ethan is smart and beautiful and funny and kind and he can’t just _die._

“Hey…come on, E. Wake up, buddy,” Benny pleads, “Look, they did it. Everything is going to be alright. We saved the town again.”

“Benny…” 

He wants to tell Sarah not to sound so sad. Ethan’s okay. He’s gonna be just fine.

“He’s okay,” he says. “Guys, he’s okay. We just gotta…we gotta get him out of here, get him some help. He’s gonna be fine!”

“Sweetie…” Erica murmurs. He hates that it lacks its usual sarcasm. “He’s gone.”

Rory isn’t saying anything, and he’s crying, and Sarah’s crying, and even Erica looks like she’s about to, but _no_ this can’t be happening, because it’s _Ethan_ and he’s only seventeen years old and he _can’t die_ because he’s Benny’s best friend, and Benny loves him more than anything on the Goddess’ earth and _this isn’t happening—_

“Benny, come on,” Rory says, and it sucks, because Rory is always, y’know, the Goof, he’s always the one saying something stupid and it almost always relieves the tension in its own stupid, Rory way, but right now, there’s no stupid comments to be made. Only tremulous pleas and watery eyes. “We gotta go, man.”

“I’m not _leaving him down here!_ ” Benny cries.

“We won’t,” Sarah assures. “We…we’ll figure it out.”

“It’s not like we can take him home,” Erica grumbles. For some reason, Benny gets the feeling that she’s expressing her own form of, like, grief.

It feels wrong. All of it feels wrong. It feels wrong when Rory pulls Ethan out of Benny’s death grip (if one could forgive the term), and it feels wrong to silently follow behind as they exit the tunnels and it feels wrong to be so far away from Ethan when they’ve spent their entire lives practically attached at the hip.

But then, everything felt wrong from the start of this, didn’t it?

Benny loses track of how long they walk for. All of them silent, none of them quite understanding what just happened. They’re not that far from town, not really, but it still feels like they’re miles away, and the fact that they’re looking for a place to…yeah.

Benny wants to say something. He has so many things he never said, that he should’ve said, and all this time he could’ve been happy with the person he loved more than anyone. At least, he gets the feeling that he could have. Ethan very well could’ve been trying to say that he’s still in love with Sarah after all this time, but Benny doubts that. He still feels the ghost of a hand on his cheek, no matter how much he pokes and prods and rubs the spot where Ethan’s hand had rested; the warmth refuses to subside. He feels like he should cry, or something. But while logic is beginning to return in part, the rest of him still feels like he’s dreaming. Like any moment, he’s going to wake up at home, and this will all have been some horrible nightmare, and he and Ethan are going to walk to school together, go to class together, go home and play video games together. And they’ll still make fun of Rory, who they love despite how annoying he is, and Sarah will still call them geeks and affectionately ruffle their hair, and Erica will still be a passive-aggressive weirdo who enjoys their company but won’t admit it. And everything will be okay.

But this is not a dream. And no matter how many times Benny squeezes his eyes shut he doesn’t wake up. And Rory is still uncharacteristically quiet, and Sarah is still strangely closed off from the rest of them, and Erica still has that soft, pitying look that seems so out of place on her. In short, everything fucking hurts, and Benny feels like he’s dying.

The path through the woods is deserted. Unsurprising, given the hour, but eerie. Not to mention, it feels…wrong to leave Ethan here. But then, what hasn’t felt wrong over the last hour and a half? Also, this is Whitechapel. Bodies pop up with no explanation everywhere. Chalk it up to an animal attack and everyone moves on within a couple days.

But is that all Ethan is going to be? Another victim of a vicious animal attack, for everyone to feel bad about and then forget about after a week or two? What about the people that know him? What about the people that know what his favorite pizza toppings are and what his favorite video game is? What about the people that know he prefers dark chocolate because milk chocolate is too sweet, and the people that know what his worst nightmares are, and the people that know he’s uncomfortable with PDA but extremely comfortable laying across your lap in private? What about the people that love him so much it hurts sometimes, the people who are losing a piece of their entire world?

Oh. That might just be Benny.

Rory is gentle, more gentle than he’s ever been in his entire life probably, in laying their fallen friend in the grass. Another moment to go under the list of _wrong, unnatural, can’t be happening._ None of them know what to say. Benny can’t breathe. 

The silence continues for who knows how long. The others are having some sort of silent conversation, and Benny wishes, however illogically, that Ethan will look at him so they can have their own. They always did have a funny way of doing that, didn’t they? It’s Sarah that breaks the silence with,

“Come on, Benny. I’ll take you home.”

He wants to protest.

He doesn’t.

Besides, Sarah’s way stronger than him, and she could easily bodily pick him up and fly him home. She doesn’t, of course, opts instead to take his arm in a strangely firm but gentle grip and lead him away, and he’s grateful for that, but it doesn’t dull the pain of leaving his best friend behind.

(If that pain will ever dull.)

They’re silent as they walk back to Benny’s neighborhood. He doesn’t want to go back, he doesn’t. Because going back would mean sleeping in his room, in his house next to Ethan’s, and knowing that he’ll never be able to…yeah.

“What’s going to happen?” he asks, softly. He doesn’t want to know, but he needs something to fill the silence.

“Erica’s going to call the police,” Sarah explains, quietly. “And from there…”

“Ethan’s gonna be another victim of an animal attack and become another statistic in the newspaper. Got it. Great.”

“Benny, I—,”

“Don’t.”

They lapse into silence once more.

Time is weird for Benny, right now. The cave seems like it’s hours ago, days ago even, but it feels like they only left the woods just a few seconds ago. It feels like an instant before Benny’s on his front porch and Sarah’s giving him one last, somewhat lingering, hug before taking flight. Benny’s not sure how long he stands on the porch, not quite having the courage to look next door, knowing what’s going to happen when the cops find Ethan’s body and report back, but he still finds himself resisting the impulse. He grew up here. He was at Ethan’s almost as often as he was home. He practically lived there. How does he look Samantha and Ross and Jane (oh, Goddess, _Jane_ ) in the eye, knowing what he knows and seeing what he’s seen?

Oh Goddess.

With that thought, he hurries inside and slams the door shut.

“Benny?” Grandma calls. “Benny, where have you been? I’ve—,” she stops short on seeing him. He doesn’t know what he looks like, but it’s got to be a mess. He chances a look down, and nearly throws up. How had he not noticed all the blood? On his hands, on his shirt, it may as well have been on his face.

“Benny,” Grandma continues, stern now. “Tell me you didn’t go down to those mines.” All Benny can manage is a mute nod. Grandma sighs, and Benny thinks she doesn’t quite know whose blood stains his hands. “Honestly, the trouble you all get yourself into. Is everyone okay?”

She doesn’t know. She can’t know. She doesn’t have the power of Sight, so how could she? How could she know that one simple question is enough to send Benny into hysterics? It was innocent, just a grandmother’s worry, but before Benny can even get a grasp of what’s happening, his vision is blurring, and he can feel himself start to crumble, and all he can do is shake his head, and squeak out,

“No,”

Now Grandma understands.

“Oh, _sweetheart,_ ”

She’s there, immediately, strong arms wrapped around Benny’s tall frame. It’s familiar, and it should be comforting, but…nothing can stop Benny from breaking apart, and nobody can put him back together, and it’s all he can do to hang on to what’s closest to him, and sob. Because it’s finally catching up to him. Ethan fucking _died_ tonight. He died in Benny’s arms and he’s not coming back, and nobody can bring him back, and it was his stupid fucking idea to track down a cave dwelling monster because he thought they could all handle it. They battled witches and vampires and ancient queens, but this one was too much. This one, of all things, was a bridge too far.

And now Ethan is dead and Benny may as well have died with him.

* * *

Benny sees the officer pull up to the Morgans’ residence later in the evening. He sees Sam’s face contort into a mix of confusion and concern, and sees the officer disappear inside. He doesn’t need to listen in to know what’s happening.

He’s all cried out—at least for now, and what’s left is a pounding headache, a sharp pain in his chest, and a sore throat. Even if he wanted to have another fit, he couldn’t, but it all comes and goes in waves. He’ll be (relatively) fine for a moment, and then everything comes crashing back down on, walls caving in until he can barely breathe, and his stomach churns violently to the point where, somewhere around four or five in the morning, he races to the bathroom to eject everything in his stomach. Which isn’t much. Bile leaves a sour taste in his mouth and his stomach heaves around nothing.

Grandma helps him back to bed.

He doesn’t move from that spot the next morning.

And it’s to be expected, right? They’re supposed to have school but no way in hell could Benny face everyone and listen to the inevitable announcement and stomach the fake grief of everyone that didn’t know Ethan the way Benny did. No way in hell could he handle the condolences of people he and Ethan make fun of—made fun of—on a daily basis in hushed whispers and stifled giggles. Nobody at that school cared about him. Not like Rory and Sarah did. Nobody cared about him the way Erica did, in her begrudging Erica way. And there is not one living soul that cared about him the way Benny did. So yeah, he refuses to step foot in the school.

The rest of the group has the same idea. Erica texts him to let him know that they’re all staying home. Sarah texts him to tell him to get some sleep. Rory texts him to let him know that this is all absolute bullshit, and Benny knows that, but he figures Rory’s just trying to process it all.

The school sends out a mass email. Miraculously, no parents ask any questions.

Benny tries to sleep, he does, and it works for a little while. But every time he manages to fall asleep, all he can see is the cave, and the spike, and Ethan’s eyes growing dimmer and dimmer, and Ethan in his arms, going, going, gone. Benny eventually gives up on sleep.

But getting out of bed in itself is an arduous task, one that Benny doesn’t wish to fulfill. His phone rests on the nightstand, notifications piling up, but he doesn’t have the energy, or the wherewithal, to check them. He doesn’t keep track of the amount of time he’s spent staring at the wall, but at least between the exhaustion and everything else, his mind is mostly, blissfully, blank.

What is it that Edgar Allen Poe said? ‘I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity’, or something like that. It…sounds about accurate. Because while, for the most part, when Benny can keep his mind turned off, he can work on autopilot. Shower and eat and all that good stuff. But when Ethan takes up residence in the empty spaces of Benny’s mind once more (as he had a way of doing even in life), it’s awful. And Benny can’t move, he can’t _breathe_ and he can’t do anything except for wallow in this unending, ever present pain. He’s the one with the spike in his chest now, and Ethan should be here to make it all go away and tell him it’s going to be alright in the end, but he’s not.

He never will be.

So a week passes. And then another. It feels like it’s been longer, but at the same time, it feels like it was yesterday. And that night in the cave was eons ago but it was only five minutes ago, and Benny still can’t sleep that well. The others leave texts and voice messages that he neither opens nor answers. Nightmares plague him, regardless of how many potions Grandma brews to keep him away, no matter how many spells they both try to at least give him a better night’s sleep.

But then, there are no spells to mend a broken heart, are there?

Almost two weeks from the day that Ethan was ripped away from them, the others come for a visit. Benny doesn’t say anything at first, and neither do they. Surprisingly—or maybe unsurprisingly, Benny doesn’t know—it’s Sarah that lies down behind him, and Benny doesn’t have it within him to make a joke about being the little spoon. Besides, it’s…well, it’s certainly different. Not bad, but different. She runs cold, obviously, but it’s a grounding sort of thing.

“The student council is organizing a vigil,” Erica says, and although her voice is soft, it cuts through the silence of the room, and she sounds…angry? “They’re getting the middle and elementary school involved in it.”

“It still doesn’t feel real,” Rory murmurs. Benny still isn’t used to Rory, of all people, sounding the way he sounds right now. Quiet, and sad. It’s another Wrong Thing, something that won’t ever be the same. Ethan was keeping their balance, and now that he’s gone, they’re all off-kilter.

“His funeral is this Saturday,” Sarah murmurs, her voice too quiet and too loud in Benny’s ear all at once. “And the vigil is Friday night. It all seems so fast.” 

Silence encompasses them all once again. Funeral. Vigil. The words sound foreign, and taste bitter on Benny’s tongue. A funeral planned by Ethan’s family; a family that lost their brother and son far too soon. A vigil planned by people that might as well have been strangers. Ethan didn’t know them, and they didn’t know Ethan. It’s all Wrong.

“They didn’t even know him,” Benny finds himself saying. Well, it comes out as more of a croak, throat dry and voice scratchy like he’s just woken up from a long, long nap. But he’s angry. He’s so fucking _angry_ because how dare they? How dare they mourn someone without ever having known how beautiful he was? “Why the fuck would they plan a vigil if they didn’t even know him?”

“To support his family, I guess,” Erica mumbles. “To support his friends.”

“They don’t know us, either,” Benny reminds her.

“No,” Erica agrees. “They don’t.” but in true Erica fashion, she plays it off with a flippant comment, “I’m still going to go, to see what a disaster it’s going to be, of course.”

“Of course,” Benny mutters. Sarah rubs his arm in what he supposes is meant to be a comforting gesture.

“I think we should all go,” she begins. “I mean, it’d look weird if we didn’t, right? We all…we all loved him. But maybe we should hold our own. Because fuck them all, they—,” she stops, before she can get herself too worked up. Silently, Benny commends her for it.

Benny neither agrees, nor disagrees. He’s so angry, but he’s so fucking empty, and nothing feels real but everything feels too real at the same time, and right now, Benny thinks, that if Sarah wasn’t right behind him, if Sarah wasn’t holding him and Erica wasn’t keeping him pinned with that intense gaze of hers, and if Rory hadn’t gotten up to take Benny’s trembling hand (when did that happen? He doesn’t remember) then he’d float away. Float out into the universe to somewhere unknown, maybe to where Ethan is, he doesn’t know.

But he’s quietly thankful that his friends are there to keep him tethered to Earth.

“Are you coming to school tomorrow?” Sarah asks, gently. Benny doesn’t know. He doesn’t want to go, but he can’t stay in his room forever.

“Yeah,” he answers. “Yeah, I am.”

His friends stay for a long time. None of them say anything, but then, none of them really _have_ to say anything, because they all know one thing: this fucking sucks. It’s always going to suck. It will never stop sucking.

Sarah is the first to leave. She presses a kiss to Benny’s temple, soft and almost motherly. She tells him to take care of himself, and that she’ll see him tomorrow. When he looks at her, it’s almost startling to see that her eyes are red and puffy, like she hasn’t stopped crying since the night it happened. Benny almost wishes he could be of some comfort to her, but how can he do that if he doesn’t even know how to comfort himself?

Rory leaves next. With a sad smile and a ‘get some rest, buddy’, and a shoulder squeeze. He has a hunch that he never had before, not even when he was still human. His shoulders curl inwards to the point where he looks way shorter, but Benny doesn’t comment on it.

And surprisingly, Erica stays. She and Benny were never really close. They had a sassy rapport that they built but nothing more than that, really. And yet, she stays. Eventually, she does get up from where she sits at Benny’s desk, but when Benny thinks she’s going to leave, he feels the bed dip by his feet, and looks over to see her sitting on the edge of it. 

“I know it may seem like I don’t care,” she starts, hesitant. “I can be…arrogant, supremely bitchy, and cold, and I call you guys names all the time, but please trust me when I say I do care. I really do.” there’s a look on her face that Benny hasn’t seen since before she was turned. Almost shy, and unsure, but soft and sympathetic…empathetic? She looks like she’s trying really _really_ hard not to cry. Which is weird, because… “He was my friend. And, believe me, or don’t believe me, but you’re my friend too, and I don’t…I don’t want to see anything happen to you?” Before Benny can ask what she means by that, she’s leaning over to squeeze his shoulder, gentle and kind. “So, whatever you need. I mean, within reason.”

Benny surprises them both with a laugh. It’s quiet, barely there, but it’s a laugh all the same.

“I know where to find you,” he finishes for her.

“Yeah,” she agrees. “Yeah, you do.”

* * *

It probably goes without saying, but school is agony. People that wouldn’t have been caught dead talking to Benny before welcome him back and offer their condolences. Ethan’s locker has been converted into some kind of instagram photo-op, and all of it makes Benny sick. It’s one thing to offer your condolences to his grieving family and group of friends, it’s another thing entirely to decorate someone’s locker when you never knew him or, y’know, made fun of him. To say Benny is disgusted would be an understatement.

The surreality is back with a vengeance. It feels to Benny like any moment now, Ethan’s going to round the corner, or nudge him when he’s not paying attention in class, or sit next to him at lunch. It feels like they’re going to find some more supernatural bullshit and Ethan is going to figure out how to take it down without even skipping third period. 

And Benny almost feels like some kind of morbid celebrity. Whispers like ‘ _hey, that’s Ethan Morgan’s best friend’_ and ‘ _dude, he knew Ethan Morgan’_ and ‘ _poor guy, I can’t imagine what he’s going through right now’,_ feel, like…obligatory and false. He wishes people would stop looking at him. Not just the sympathetic glances but in general. He feels like a bug under a microscope, crushed under hundreds of pairs of eyes until he can’t breathe. He grips the strap of his bag so hard his hands shake, and he feels like he’s about to lose his mind.

He’s grateful for his friends, though. Every time he’s close to snapping, it’s either Rory, Sarah, or Erica that’s there to place a calming hand on his shoulder or bodily steer him away so he doesn’t do something stupid, like maybe hex someone into next week like he desperately wants to sometimes. His magic is doing him no favors anymore; the instinctual spells without an incantation are incredibly cool and useful and all that, but there might be a problem if he turns someone into a mouse, or curses them on accident. Accidentally on purpose. Whatever.

All the while, Benny still feels like he’s floating. Floating and falling in a horrible, dizzying pattern. When he falls, he’s slammed back into reality and it hurts, it hurts so fucking much, and more than once, one of his friends has to usher him out of class or out of the lounge and into somewhere private where he can break down away from prying eyes. And when he’s floating, it feels like he’ll never come back down to earth. His body is taking him from place to place, but Benny is nowhere to be found. 

It’s exhausting. 

Friday comes long before Benny is ready. But then, he’ll never actually be ready, will he? He’s not sure what it is that gets him up and ready to go _back_ to the school and listen to bullshit speeches and half-assed eulogies, but he suspects it has something to do with Grandma offering her support and Sarah giving him those pleading eyes, and Erica texting him to tell him that she’s going and it’d be weird if she went and he didn’t. It’s for Ethan’s family, he tells himself. And it’s a nice gesture, he tells himself. 

That doesn’t make it suck less.

Still, he pulls himself away from his desk and gets ready to leave. It’s been getting colder lately, the harsh Whitechapel winter knocking at their doors. Seems fitting that it’d be frigid on a night like this. Ethan always made fun of the pea coat that Benny wears now, said it looked too stiff and serious for someone like Benny to wear. Stiff and serious is the only thing Benny can conjure for himself right now.

Grandma offers to drive them, but Sarah shrugs her shoulders and says she could use the walk, instead. Grandma doesn’t argue, and Benny’s just grateful that Sarah takes his hand, a gesture that comforts them both, as they make the trek back to the school. It’s starting to snow, and Benny’s hands tremble despite the fact that his gloves are warm, and Sarah’s mittens shield him from her dead-cold fingertips.

(Last time it snowed, Benny and Ethan had snuck out in the middle of the night, to go sledding and hurl snowballs at each other like they were six instead of sixteen. With the snowflakes sticking to Ethan’s hair and eyelashes, he looked like some sort of ethereal being, his smile almost otherworldly, and he’d stolen Benny’s breath away.

He should’ve kissed him, that night.)

There’s…a lot of people. Too many people. They crowd and they cry and it’s overwhelming in more ways than one. Candles are lit, words are shared, and even Principle Hicks gets up to say something. Sam and Ross and Jane huddle together against the cold, and Benny has a hysterical thought that their tears are going to freeze to their faces. But mostly, he feels like he should stand with them. It feels weird not to, but he almost thinks it’d feel weirder if he did. He was there. He knew how Ethan died, and they could never know. Well, Jane might. But Sam and Ross will never know that their son’s blood stains Benny’s shirt, and they’ll never know that Benny held him as he died, and they’ll think that he was killed by some wild animal and not a supernatural entity in a network of forgotten mines.

Telling them won’t make it any easier. Not on them, and especially not on Benny.

Songs are sung. Goodbyes are said. The crowd begins to disperse, until only a handful of people remain. Benny keeps his hands stuffed in his pockets, stares at the ground where someone had written _R.I.P Ethan Morgan_ in pink chalk. Benny hopes it gets covered by snow. And he hopes it washes away when the snow melts.

Ethan would’ve hated this. He would’ve hated all of this. 

Someone tugs on his sleeve. He assumes it’s one of the vamps, and he waits for them to continue. But he startles when a different, but familiar voice, softly calls his name, and he looks to Jane with wide eyes. He doesn’t know what to say to her, aside from, quietly,

“Hey, Jane…”

Jane doesn’t say anything, at first. Sam and Ross are speaking with Rory’s mom, all sad smiles and barely held back tears. Benny’s heart aches for them.

“This was stupid,” Jane says, eventually.

“Yeah, it was,” Benny agrees. Jane purses her lips and shoves her hands in her pockets. She looks like she’s building the courage to say something, or ask a question, but before Benny can ask her what’s wrong, she blurts,

“It wasn’t a wild animal.”

“No,” Benny whispers. “It wasn’t.”

“He was fighting another monster, wasn’t he?”

“Yeah,” Benny tells her, voice hoarse. “I’m sorry. I tried to…”

“Is it dead?” Jane asks. She sounds way more angry, more tired, than an average ten year-old should sound. “The monster. Is it dead?”

“Yeah,” Benny repeats. “We got it.”

“Good.”

They stand together in silence for a few moments more, until the only ones who remain are Ethan’s family and his friends. Sarah converses quietly with Erica and Rory, and the three of them glance over every now and then. Sam and Ross get ready to leave, and Jane lets out a shaky exhale. She’s too young for this. She’s too fucking young, she shouldn’t have to mourn her brother at the age of ten, she shouldn’t have to know what it feels like to love someone and lose them so suddenly.

She doesn’t say anything, as she turns to walk away.

“Jane,” Benny calls, reaching out to stop her with a hand on her shoulder, because he needs to say this to someone, and if not his parents, then at least someone else that needs this comfort. She glances up to him, equal parts curious and suspicious. “He wasn’t alone.” Benny continues. “I…I was with him, until the very end, and…for what it’s worth, he wasn’t…at least, he told me he wasn’t in pain, so…”

A range of expressions cross Jane’s face, until she settles on a tiny, sad smile.

“Thanks, Benny.”

And with that, she’s gone. Walking back to her parents. They head to the car, and they drive out of sight.

Benny inhales, shakily, and exhales a cloud of vapor that dissipates into the night air. It’s getting late. He should go home. They’ve got somewhere to be, tomorrow.

“I don’t want to go home yet,” he says, when he feels his friends’ presence behind him. “I can’t…I just don’t want to be there, right now.”

“Okay,” Rory says, gently. “Where do you want to go?”

Everywhere he goes is going to remind him of Ethan.

“I don’t know,” he answers, honestly. “Anywhere but here.”

* * *

At first, Benny’s worried that he won’t have his friends with him during this time. He’s worried that Rory won’t get to come inside, because he grew up with them, too. But they can’t do much about a funeral held inside a church, in a town like Whitechapel. At least, normal people can’t. Grandma hands them each a charm, just outside.

“I figured you’d want to be here,” she tells them, quietly. Her way of saying that it wouldn’t be fair to make them wait outside. They all look grateful, but their words of thanks are quiet.

It’s snowing again. Benny figured it never stopped snowing. If Ethan were here he’d make a _Game of Thrones_ reference. It feels empty without it.

They’re early, all of them. Rory sits on Benny’s left, Sarah on his right. Erica sits just on the other side of Sarah, their hands linked together. Benny feels incredibly lonely when he notices as much. And he guesses Sarah can sense it, and that’s why she reaches with her free hand to grasp Benny’s, but it’s not the same. Sarah and Erica get to move on with their lives, they get to love each other (because, come on, it’s obvious) and maybe get married (or whatever vampires do) and adopt little vampire children and be happy together.

Benny does not get to do the same.

Sure, he might find someone new. He might fall in love all over again, and maybe this guy won’t leave him, and maybe he’ll be happy and maybe he’ll feel some semblance of normalcy, but he sees a future in Sarah and Erica’s intertwined fingers. A future he’ll never have. A future where Ethan wakes him up in the morning with gentle kisses and teases him all the while. A future with a wedding and nothing but support from their families. A future where Benny is with the love of his life, a future with a baby, a dog, an herb garden, a house with a picket fence.

But he doesn’t get that. Not with Ethan, at least. And that’s the cruelest thing of all.

Here’s the thing, about finding out that you’re a warlock in your freshman year of high school; everything else has a sense of…disillusionment, almost. After three years of praying to the Goddess and seeing what he’s seen, Benny finds it hard to pay attention to what the preacher says, has a hard time doing much else aside from respectfully bowing his head during prayer.

Ethan’s family gets up to speak. Benny wants to, but what the hell does he say? Nothing comes to mind that he can say at a Christian Funeral. Only that he loved the boy who was so suddenly torn away from them, only that Ethan was so fucking brave, but so fucking _stupid,_ taking on one mythical creature after the next without a care for himself. 

He stays in his seat.

The casket is open, and that, in itself, feels weird. Ethan’s wound is hidden from view, but as Benny approaches, all he can see is the gaping hole in Ethan’s chest where the spike was. He’s been embalmed, of course, makeup applied to make him seem a little less dead, eyes closed so nobody sees how empty they are, but to Benny, he still looks _dead._ All he can see is sightless, glassy eyes, and a pale, pale face, stony and unresponsive.

He doesn’t spend very long there. Part of him, these last two weeks, wanted to see Ethan one last time. But not like this. Never like this.

The procession is silent, on the way to the graveyard, and all Benny can focus on is, not the fact that he’s carrying a casket, and not the fact that he doesn’t remember agreeing to be a pallbearer with Ross and Rory and some other men that he doesn’t entirely recognize (family members, most likely), but the fact that there’s not a headstone. They take a long time to make, he figures, and when someone dies suddenly, all there can be until the stone is finished is a simple marker. It looks weird, staked in the ground in front of a rectangular hole. Benny stares at it as the preacher says one final prayer. He stares at it as the casket is lowered into the ground, and he stares at it long after the hole has been filled and packed and long after everyone else has left. Similarly to the night before, he stays in one spot, barely blinking, barely breathing. The suit he wears is suffocating and his throat is closing up, he can barely even move.

It’s Erica that eventually pulls him away, encourages him to eat something. Wordlessly, he follows.

Isn’t it funny that there’s always a luncheon right after a funeral? Like they shouldn’t be too sick to their stomachs to eat anything and shouldn’t be too sad to drink something that isn’t made with copious amounts of alcohol. Benny sits at a table with the others, picking at a sandwich on his plate and occasionally taking a sip from the punch in his cup. Sarah had brought him the plate, and he feels like it’d be rude to Not eat anything. She tried, at least.

Hesitant footsteps approach, and Benny just assumes that it’s someone else from their school. He keeps his eyes on his uneaten food. It’s not until Sarah looks up and surprisedly greets,

“Mrs. Morgan, hey.”

That Benny finally glances up.

Sarah’s the first to stand, hurrying around the table in her flats to give Ethan’s mom a hug, murmuring a soft, sincere,

“I’m so sorry for your loss.”

Erica’s next, her hug brief but her sympathy genuine. And then Rory, strong but careful. Benny stands, then. And it shouldn’t be awkward, it really shouldn’t. Benny doesn't really remember his mom, and his dad was never around, so the Morgans were the closest thing to parents that Benny would ever know. So it shouldn’t be awkward, and he should be able to look Sam in the eye, but he can’t. All he can do is wrap his arms around her and hold on, because he’s sorry. He’s so fucking _sorry_ because he could’ve helped Ethan, couldn’t he? He could’ve healed him or reacted better, and none of this had to happen, but it _did._ And he can’t tell Sam any of that. 

She’s always been pretty, and she still is. Sad and tired, but beautiful. Jane’s going to look just like her someday. Maybe Ethan would have, too. 

“How’ve you been doing?” Sam asks as they pull away. So that’s where Ethan gets it from. “I haven’t really seen much of you…”

“Yeah, I’m sorry,” Benny answers. He sounds hoarse even to his own ears, but then, hasn’t he sounded that way for the last two weeks? “I just…’

“No, I get it, honey,” Sam assures, hand squeezing his shoulder. “Trust me, I get it. Don’t apologize.”

They settle into an awkward silence, neither of them quite willing to look at each other just yet.

“Hey, Mrs. Morgan,” Erica says. “Why don’t you sit down?” when Sam opens her mouth to protest, Sarah cuts in with,

“Please? You look exhausted.”

What else would anyone expect? Sam hesitates for a moment before nodding her head. Benny pulls a chair out for her, and she sits.

“Honestly, I’ve just…been trying to keep busy,” she confesses. “It helps. So I don’t think about…” when she pauses to take a deep, shuddering breath, Sarah reaches over and lays a comforting hand on the grieving mother’s. Sometimes, it’s funny to Benny how Sarah, a fucking teenage vampire, has more compassion than most human adults. Seems ironic, doesn’t it? “Jane seems to be doing alright, considering. I can’t really get anything out of Ross, so I don’t know…” she shakes her head, forces a smile. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to—,”

“It’s fine,” Erica cuts in, and Benny has never seen her smile so gently and so sadly at anyone. “Really. We totally understand.”

Sam’s smile wavers. It was weak before.

“Thank you,” she says, barely even a whisper. “You really…all of you meant so much to him. I…thank you, for being his friend, for…just, thank you.”

“He meant a lot to us, too,” Benny finds himself saying. “All of us.”

“I know, sweetie,” Sam tells him. He wishes she didn’t squeeze his shoulder like that. He doesn’t deserve it.

He remembers one day, they couldn’t have been older than five or six, Ethan asked if they were going to get married one day. Of course, Benny had said. Best friends got married all the time. The next day, Ethan was absolutely _beside_ himself coming home, because the teacher had said that boys can’t marry boys. Of course, by the time they were nine, marriage equality was recognized nationwide, but at the time, it had been devastating for them both. Sam had been the one to comfort them.

Benny’s certain she remembers that, too.

It’s not exactly small talk that Sam indulges them in, it almost feels too heavy for that, but it’s…close. Eventually, someone else pulls her attention away, and she leaves the group of friends to their own devices.

“So, are we doing this tonight?” Erica asks, quietly. “That vigil last night was bullshit.”

“Yeah, Ethan would’ve fucking hated that,” Rory mutters.

“Yeah,” Benny agrees, huffing a sarcastic chuckle where he slumps in his seat. “Can you imagine what he would’ve said? He’d’ve been bitching the whole way through.”

“Honestly,” Sarah mutters, but she sounds at least halfway amused. “Nobody can throw a bitchfit like Ethan.”

“‘Principle Hicks is in on this?’” Rory starts, in his best (so, not very great) impression of Ethan. “‘Come on, he hated me.’”

“‘Why is _she_ crying?’” Erica offers. “‘She was never nice to me.’”

“‘Come on, guys, let’s get out of here. This shit’s depressing,’” Sarah chimes in.

“‘Can you believe this?’” Benny adds. “‘Who knew I was so popular? I fuckin’ didn’t.’”

Their laughter is hollow.

After several moments of not-quite-crushing but not-quite-comfortable silence, Benny says,

“Yeah. I’m in for tonight.”

“Me too,” Rory agrees.

“Yeah, same,” Sarah murmurs.

“Cool,” Erica says, because she probably doesn’t know what else to say. “Where at?”

The mines don’t seem like a great place for it. Neither does the place where they abandoned his body.

“I know a place,” Rory offers. “I’ll text you guys the coordinates.”

With that, they take their time to recuperate at home.

Benny prepares himself for what’s to come. But then, he’ll never be ready, will he?

* * *

Candles clink together in Benny’s bag as he follows his GPS to Rory’s spot. The snow still hasn’t stopped, and the cold seeps through Benny’s clothes, through his skin, and settles into his bones. He doesn’t mind so much. He’s still dressed in the suit he hates, all of them having only wanted to wait until it was dark to do this.

Benny doesn’t know whether or not he’s surprised that he arrives first, but he doesn’t dwell on it. The clearing is beautiful, it really is. The freshly fallen snow glitters in the pale light of the Mother’s Moon, and it’s far away from the sounds of Whitechapel. In fact, there isn’t…much sound at all. Benny figures that, in the summer, when the creeks aren’t frozen and there’s a lot more food, that it sounds livelier. Birds probably sing, and deer probably lope through the forest. For now, it’s just Benny and the subtle sounds of the gentle breeze. It’s peaceful, he decides. Rory’s really outdone himself, hasn’t he?

Benny sets to work setting everything up. There’s a flat rock, perfect for setting down the things he’s brought. Candles, for one, and an assortment of herbs. Benny’s not sure what he’s hoping for with this. To summon Ethan’s spirit for a final goodbye? Maybe. Will it work? Probably not.

Rory arrives next. Benny doesn’t even flinch when Rory’s voice cuts through the silence, despite not having heard his approach, only wordlessly hands him three of the candles and a lighter. Sarah and Erica arrive together, and they, too, remain silent as Rory hands them their candles and lights all three.

Benny struggles with the lighter. The altar is practically finished, all he needs to do is, you guessed it, light the final candles. But his hands shake as he tries to ignite the lighter. Whether from cold or nerves, or something else, he doesn’t know. Eventually, Rory takes the lighter from him and sets to work. Benny pulls his beanie down so it better covers his ears, and waits.

With the altar finished and all four friends holding their lit candles, Rory reaches into his pocket and offers a shrug that’s almost sheepish.

“I figured I should bring something, y’know?” he says, and places the object on the altar. Benny could almost laugh. It’s a friggin bar of dark chocolate. But then, they all know Ethan would have appreciated it.

“I brought something too,” Erica pipes up. “I mean, it’s not much, but…” But it’s something. She places a small TARDIS keychain next to the bar of chocolate. “I saw it in the store on the way here, and…yeah.”

“It’s nice,” Benny tells her. And he means that.

“Uh…Ethan, won this for me,” Sarah says, pulling something small from her pocket. “It’s not anything special, but he was so proud of it. I figured he should have it back.”

Again, it’s not much, a small trinket just above a consolation prize from carnival games. But it means something.

Benny’s the last one to place an offering. 

“When me and Ethan were kids,” he starts, and clears his throat when his voice breaks. “We, uh…heh, we promised each other we’d get married someday. I know it sounds stupid, but it made sense to us. Like, hey, we’re best friends, we love each other, right? Obviously we’d get married someday. Clearly, that’s um…that’s not gonna happen.” 

God, it hurts to say that.

“But, I was digging around a little while ago, trying to find where I put my spellbook, and I found this,” to anyone else, it looks like a silly arts and crafts project. A simple bracelet that any five or six year old would have made. But Benny remembers the day they made those bracelets for each other, when they swore they'd be married. He remembers how they’d both refuse to take them off. Gently, he places it in the snow with the other items. “For what it’s worth, bud…” he whispers to the altar. “I’d still marry the shit out of you.”

He stands back up, and Sarah leans her head on his shoulder, hand still linked with Erica’s. Benny stuffs his own hands in his pockets, but he appreciates the comfort he gets from Sarah. The same comfort he gets from Rory, gloved hand resting on Benny’s back.

Quietly, Benny recites a prayer he learned from Grandma. He’s not technically a druid, and Ethan definitely wasn’t either, but it feels like he should. He’s used to Latin, and Gaelic feels foreign on his tongue, but the Goddess knows his heart, anyway.

SIlence settles over them once again. The tiny flames of the candles are almost mesmerizing, and Benny would start to feel sleepy if not for the cold and the whole reason they’re out here. Eventually, Erica asks,

“Should we, like, say a few words…?”

“If you want to,” Benny answers. “I guess.”

Erica nods, thinks for a moment, sighs, and says,

“Well. He was a geek,” when they all roll their eyes, she continues, softer, “But he was my friend. And he was brave as fuck. Almost stupidly so, if I’m honest. And he was _kind._ Again, stupidly so, sometimes. Even when people didn’t deserve it. I didn’t have it within me to be kind to the people who wronged me in the past, so…I’d say he was pretty fucking strong, to endure bullying and name calling, and still look the person in the eye and offer his help if they were having a bad day, so, yeah.” she takes a deep, shuddering breath, and finishes with, “He was a good person. It fucking sucks that he had to go so soon. We need more Ethans in the world.”

Sarah presses a kiss to Erica’s hand, whose smile is still sad, but grateful.

“Ethan was a fucking badass,” Rory offers, and the other three chuckle softly in response. “It’s true. I mean, he was a genius. He always knew how to get us all out of whatever situation we were in. Jesus, he was a _seer._ Can’t get any cooler than that, in my opinion.” with a half-smile, Rory nudges Benny’s shoulder. “Unless you’re a kickass warlock with instinctual magic.”

Benny manages a huff of amusement.

“But most of all, he was a good friend,” Rory continues. Quieter, he adds, “I’m gonna miss you, dude.”

Sarah is the next one to take a deep breath, and offer something to say,

“Ethan helped me a lot,” she starts. “With the whole vampire thing. When I wanted a cure, he tried to help me with that, and when I accepted it, he was supportive. Not to mention, he was the first human I ever drank blood from.” it’s probably a joke made in poor taste, but Benny can appreciate her humor. “Anyway…he never gave up on me, even when I wanted to give up on me. I don’t…I don’t know if I’ll ever find another friend like him. I always thought, like, he’d grow up, get married, have a couple of kids. Or whatever he wanted, y’know? He deserved that. And, it’s…” when her voice breaks, Erica is there to squeeze her hand, press a kiss to her temple. “It’s _really_ fucking unfair. He deserved this the least out of all of us.”

“Only the good die young,” Benny mutters under his breath. Funny how an expression like that actually rings true.

The silence is oppressive once more. Like it’s missing something. Benny keeps his eyes steadfast on the ground, but he can feel the others staring at him. He clenches his jaw, fists all but shaking in his pockets.

“What do you want me to say?” he asks them. “Everything I do have to say, you all already know. Like how he was my best friend, and life is going to fucking suck without him. Like how I always looked forward to marathoning a new game or binging a show with him. Like…how I hated sleepovers at his house because we couldn’t fit in his bed anymore, and if he just slept over at mine we could both lay in my bed and neither of us would have to take the floor. Or…how I always wanted to be near him, because sometimes he was the only thing that made any fucking sense. Or how, all he had to do to cheer me up was fucking _exist_ or how he was the most beautiful person I ever knew, with the best smile and the most endearing laugh, and the cutest brown eyes I’ve ever seen in my life.”

Benny never noticed when he started crying. He should stop. He doesn’t.

“Or maybe how I was in love with him? Yeah. Like…I would do anything to kiss his dumb face or to hold his stupid hand or hear him tell me that he loves me to, but it’s all for fucking nothing anyway, and—,”

Someone is sobbing. And Benny’s throat is entirely too tight and his head hurts entirely too much and he’s cold all over for some reason and he would love to go on and on and on and wax poetic about how much he loved Ethan Morgan, how much he would give just to have him back, but he can’t _breathe—_

And then several things occur to him.

At some point, he’d fallen to his knees in the snow, and the cold is creeping its way through his body and threatening to freeze him to the ground.

His friends have gathered around him, all trying to hug him in some way. It’s an awkward sort of huddle, and with the three being vampires, it does nothing to stave off the cold, but it’s something.

And he’s the one sobbing. There was a time where he’d be embarrassed about this, and it hardly feels like it was only two weeks ago. But right now, he doesn’t care. His chest hurts and he can’t stop the tears from coming, and he couldn’t stop this even if he tried. All he can do is hang on to the anchors that are his friends, and wait for the storm to pass.

“I love him,” he whimpers. “Fuck, I love him so much.”

“We know you do,” Erica whispers. “We know you do, Benny. He loved you too.”

Not past-tense. Benny can’t be the only one who noticed that.

“It hurts…” he murmurs, instead of pointing that out. “It hurts so fucking bad, I don’t—I can’t—,”

“Shh,” Sarah soothes. “We know, honey. We know.”

So Benny allows himself to display how he's shattered. Wholly, and completely. Except this time, it doesn’t feel like he’s dying. And…instead of breaking, it feels like something else. Something that doesn’t have a name. Or something he’s not ready to name, yet. Either way, this doesn’t feel…awful. Not as awful as the last two weeks have felt.

And somewhere, in the back of his mind, Benny knows that this isn’t over. There’ll be awful days and there’ll be okay days, and there’ll even be good days, but he can’t waste time thinking about them. All he can do is live in the present, as cheesy as that sounds. And eventually, like right now, the tears will come to an end, and he’ll feel lighter.

And hey. All his friends are immortal. They’ll literally always be there for each other. That’s pretty promising, in the end.

**Author's Note:**

> for what it's worth, i made Myself cry.
> 
> i didn't mean for this to be so long, but here we are. honestly i just mixed together all of the character deaths that Destroyed Me. a pinch of Eddie Kaspbrak, a dash of Arthur Pendragon, a sprinkle of Allison Argent. bethan honestly has reddie energy so how could i not?
> 
> anywaaaaaaaay i'm on twitter as [ @AlyeskaWrites ](https://twitter.com/AlyeskaWrites) so come yell at me there i need more moots.


End file.
